elephant.”
“
You’re
a baby elephant,” Bobby said scornfully. He’d risen from the table when Jack walked in and stood by his chair, the perfect diplomat’s son. “Tomorrow’s Friday. We’ve got school, and Jack’ll be going to morning mass with Father.”
Mass.
Jack felt something tighten in his gut. He wasn’t a bad Catholic but he wasn’t an ardent one, either—he lived in the gray area of life too much to believe in the black-and-white world Rome and his mother painted. Sinners and Saints, when most of us were somewhere in between. The idea of Eternal Damnation was never something he’d been able to swallow. But Bobby was different—he
needed
belief, Jack thought. If there were no reward in Heaven, life would be just so much hell. There was a certain satisfaction, too, in all those rules, in telling everybody where they’d screwed up. Jack eyed Bobby’s perfectly combed dark hair, the thin face that was too pale, the bitten fingernails. Bobby would probably end up a priest.
“Where’s Jean?” he asked.
“School.” Bobby shrugged slightly, as though he hadn’t been missing his favorite sister. “Roehampton. The convent there. She’s with Pat and Eunice.
You
know.”
“And Rosie?”
Bobby frowned, and glanced swiftly at Teddy; but the little boy had gone back to sawing his beef happily again. “Some place where she’s learning to be a teacher. Monty-something.”
“Montessori?”
“That’s it. I haven’t seen her since Christmas.”
Rosie fell between Jack and Kick in the family pecking order. She was the prettiest of the Kennedy girls—but slow. Very slow. Jack had once punched a kid on the playground for calling Rosie a moron and he dreaded the nights when his mother insisted her brothers take her to their parties. Jack would dance with Rosie and pass her off to Joe just to shield her from some guy who’d try to get her out into a car and lift up her dress. They all tried to shield Rosie. But it was getting tough. Kick had written to Jack a few months ago, worried sick. Rosie had taken to slipping out of Prince’s Gate, and walking the streets of London at night, when everyone thought she was safe in bed. Probably why she’d been shipped off to this Montessori place.
“Have you eaten, sir?” the nanny asked.
“No,” he admitted. He eyed the boys’ congealing beef, the grayish peas flattened into gravy, the lumps of potato. English cooking at its finest. His bowel twisted suddenly and he grasped a chair, knuckles whitening. “I’m dining out this evening.”
* * *
THE 400 CLUB WAS IN A BASEMENT in Leicester Square. Along with the Café de Paris, it catered to the wealthy twenty-somethings of London. It had a minuscule dance floor and an eighteen-piece orchestra. You could get food if you needed it, but there was no menu; you simply ordered what you wanted and somehow the kitchen delivered. Drinks were sold by the bottle, not the glass, and if you didn’t finish the bottle the barman corked it and kept it until you returned the next night, or the next.
The practice was useless with champagne, and so a great deal was ordered and drunk to the dregs in the 400 Club.
Jack wasn’t a member—admittance was by subscription only—but everyone he knew in London belonged, and he’d spent most of last summer in the club’s perpetual gloom. Bert the Doorman, as he was affectionately called, would never turn a Kennedy away; Kick and Joe and Jack haunted the place. The dancing didn’t stop until four o’clock in the morning, and if you were still there at dawn, they gave you breakfast.
Jack carelessly handed Bert a pound note and walked in. Tim Clayton’s band was playing swing and half the room was dancing the big apple, one of the wildest things to cross the Atlantic in the past few years. The big apple was something like the Lindy and something like the jitterbug, and it was worth watching in Harlem or in a juke joint down Carolina way. But here in London? Jack
“
You’re
a baby elephant,” Bobby said scornfully. He’d risen from the table when Jack walked in and stood by his chair, the perfect diplomat’s son. “Tomorrow’s Friday. We’ve got school, and Jack’ll be going to morning mass with Father.”
Mass.
Jack felt something tighten in his gut. He wasn’t a bad Catholic but he wasn’t an ardent one, either—he lived in the gray area of life too much to believe in the black-and-white world Rome and his mother painted. Sinners and Saints, when most of us were somewhere in between. The idea of Eternal Damnation was never something he’d been able to swallow. But Bobby was different—he
needed
belief, Jack thought. If there were no reward in Heaven, life would be just so much hell. There was a certain satisfaction, too, in all those rules, in telling everybody where they’d screwed up. Jack eyed Bobby’s perfectly combed dark hair, the thin face that was too pale, the bitten fingernails. Bobby would probably end up a priest.
“Where’s Jean?” he asked.
“School.” Bobby shrugged slightly, as though he hadn’t been missing his favorite sister. “Roehampton. The convent there. She’s with Pat and Eunice.
You
know.”
“And Rosie?”
Bobby frowned, and glanced swiftly at Teddy; but the little boy had gone back to sawing his beef happily again. “Some place where she’s learning to be a teacher. Monty-something.”
“Montessori?”
“That’s it. I haven’t seen her since Christmas.”
Rosie fell between Jack and Kick in the family pecking order. She was the prettiest of the Kennedy girls—but slow. Very slow. Jack had once punched a kid on the playground for calling Rosie a moron and he dreaded the nights when his mother insisted her brothers take her to their parties. Jack would dance with Rosie and pass her off to Joe just to shield her from some guy who’d try to get her out into a car and lift up her dress. They all tried to shield Rosie. But it was getting tough. Kick had written to Jack a few months ago, worried sick. Rosie had taken to slipping out of Prince’s Gate, and walking the streets of London at night, when everyone thought she was safe in bed. Probably why she’d been shipped off to this Montessori place.
“Have you eaten, sir?” the nanny asked.
“No,” he admitted. He eyed the boys’ congealing beef, the grayish peas flattened into gravy, the lumps of potato. English cooking at its finest. His bowel twisted suddenly and he grasped a chair, knuckles whitening. “I’m dining out this evening.”
* * *
THE 400 CLUB WAS IN A BASEMENT in Leicester Square. Along with the Café de Paris, it catered to the wealthy twenty-somethings of London. It had a minuscule dance floor and an eighteen-piece orchestra. You could get food if you needed it, but there was no menu; you simply ordered what you wanted and somehow the kitchen delivered. Drinks were sold by the bottle, not the glass, and if you didn’t finish the bottle the barman corked it and kept it until you returned the next night, or the next.
The practice was useless with champagne, and so a great deal was ordered and drunk to the dregs in the 400 Club.
Jack wasn’t a member—admittance was by subscription only—but everyone he knew in London belonged, and he’d spent most of last summer in the club’s perpetual gloom. Bert the Doorman, as he was affectionately called, would never turn a Kennedy away; Kick and Joe and Jack haunted the place. The dancing didn’t stop until four o’clock in the morning, and if you were still there at dawn, they gave you breakfast.
Jack carelessly handed Bert a pound note and walked in. Tim Clayton’s band was playing swing and half the room was dancing the big apple, one of the wildest things to cross the Atlantic in the past few years. The big apple was something like the Lindy and something like the jitterbug, and it was worth watching in Harlem or in a juke joint down Carolina way. But here in London? Jack
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